Rockford Etsy initiative spreading to other cities

ROCKFORD – The idea of turning the jobless or underemployed into entrepreneurial crafters and hobbyists has spread beyond Rockford.

Etsy, the e-commerce platform used to sell jewelry, potholders, furniture and art to a global audience, says Dallas; Newark, New Jersey; and Santa Cruz, California, are launching craft entrepreneurship training programs like one started in Rockford last year.

The program, and another like it in New York City, helps people boost income by selling their creations online and join what Etsy calls the “maker economy.”

“We’ve had dozens of inquiries,” said Dana Mauriello, director of Human Scale Labs for Etsy, which is based in Brooklyn, New York. “We’re looking to expand that concept to multiple cities this year.”

Mauriello said those inquiries are coming from both large and small places that want to know more about setting up their own programs.

Mauriello said craft entrepreneurship doesn’t rely on attracting large employers that require specific skills and education requirements. It relies on developing skills people already have, then teaching them the basics of business. These micro businesses aren’t likely to make someone rich, but they can provide bridge income for someone who is out of work or wants to supplement household income.

In Santa Cruz County, an hour south of San Francisco, a craft entrepreneurship program will target in the Watsonville area, where unemployment is consistently above 20 percent, and 44 percent of the population hasn’t made it past ninth grade.

In the past 10 years, as agriculture has become year-round, migrant Mexican field workers have settled in the area. Poverty, said Barbara Mason, economic development coordinator for the county, is high.

“We’re reaching out to people with skills, but who don’t know how to sell or price items, so they can have a successful online store,” Mason said. “This is grassroots economic development.”

Etsy, founded in 2005, is an e-commerce platform that allows people to set up online stores to sell homemade items to a global customer base. Etsy members pay a 20-cent listing fee and 3.5 percent commission on merchandise they sell. Last year, Etsy stores sold $1.3 billion in goods, up from $900 million in 2012.

The idea to use Etsy’s platform as a way to boost income and teach entrepreneurial skills started with a 2012 tweet from Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey to Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson, inquiring about programs for high schools or job training.

Since then, the city, Rockford Housing Authority and other agencies have partnered with Etsy to create a craft entrepreneurship training program here, which, in October, graduated a dozen people from a four-week program on how to open an Etsy business.

Other cities will use curriculum developed here.

RHA resident Jamie Kasper was among the first craft entrepreneurship graduates here. She opened an Etsy store, Worldwidebeauty, last fall to market her artwork. She says it has helped sell prints and originals of downtown Rockford buildings she sketches. While craft entrepreneurship training taught her the basics of Etsy, other classes, such as Creating the Creative Business, have helped her hone practical sales and marketing skills, such as the importance of serving customers and handing out business cards.

Another graduate, North Main Manor resident Susan Itzenthaler, has been making earrings for years for friends and family. Now she is building inventory of her jewelry to launch an Etsy store this summer.

“I’m 60 years old,” said Itzenthaler, a cancer survivor who is on disability. “I can’t move around easily because I have spinal stenosis. But I really want to do something in Rockford that will bring some income in.”

And her online business may be one of the few avenues for her to make that happen. And that’s why Morrissey believes Etsy works.

“In Rockford there are significant disconnects between the capabilities of a given individual and the jobs out there, and then we wave arms and wonder why we don’t have a prosperous community,” Morrissey said.

“We need to have jobs and opportunities for the citizens we have, not the citizens we wish we did have.

“It doesn’t mean I’m betting the community’s future on the handmade goods market. But we’re tapping into a pool of dollars that weren’t being tapped into in the past by a group of individuals who have been left out of the economic pie.”

Morrissey said Rockford’s Etsy initiative has its critics.

He counters, “Well, what the hell are you doing for the person at RHA? What are you doing for the ex-felon when you explain to them they can’t go back to a life of crime, but I don’t have any jobs for you?

“Until someone comes up with a better idea, I’m running with this one.”